California — In a refreshing and unfortunately rare instance of reasonableness in policy,
California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law a piece of legislation requiring police to secure an actual conviction before stealing people’s stuff in drug-related offenses.
Civil asset forfeiture has been rightly likened to state-sanctioned armed robbery, as it allows police to commandeer cash, vehicles, homes, or any property of value — even if the person is never charged with a crime — and then use or sell the items for profit for their departments.
As High Times noted, a report by the Drug Policy Alliance in 2013 found the average cash seized totaled $5,100 — an alarmingly high sum, considering the same report cited an investigation which discovered in roughly 80 percent of those cases, the person was never charged with a crime.DYI Comments: It's about damn time and hopefully this legislation will spread to the remaining 49 States.
DYI
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